When I first scheduled an election analysis discussion with former U.S. Representative Steve Israel, it’s fair to say that my initial set of questions had nothing to do with how to run for President in a time of coronavirus.

How’s our democracy doing? Are America’s democratic norms still valid? How much more can our institutions take? I decided to dedicate the next two conversations to the topic, starting with a new conversation on “How Democracies Die.”

DocuPod: Chief Justice John G. Roberts published his annual Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary. With tensions among government branches high and impeachment trial likely, this year’s report was widely anticipated.

When considering Trump’s immigration policy, it’s hard to get past the headlines. But Hirschfeld Davis & Shear’s story offers an incredibly useful way to consider the entire Trump presidency and address central questions: Who are we, and what is America?

Philip Mudd explains the state of our national intelligence and law enforcement agencies — and revisits the CIA’s Black Sites, where our debates on torture, counterterrorism & the responsibility to prevent another attack were born